I have to wait an hour after I take my Synthroid before I can eat breakfast, so I use the time to read the on-line comics and print off the crossword puzzles so The Squire and I can work them wile we eat. This morning he was at his computer, also reading the funnies when suddenly the fire alarm went off. While we bolted for the kitchen I asked him if he’d left something on the stove – a trick we’ve both pulled in the past – which he denied.
It turned out the alarm had misfunctioned. There was nothing on the stove, not even an empty frying pan. We hadn’t put bread in the toaster, and the oven wasn’t on. We waved a towel at the blasted thing, pressed the reset button, took it off the wall and tried to open it. Nothing worked.
We finally put it out on the picnic table, where it continued to annoy all of Greater Downtown Bradshaw. After breakfast, The Squire said he had to run over to church for something, but I’m inclined to think he just wanted to escape the noise. After about fifteen minutes after he left, I decided my choices were to carry it out to the barn, or beat it to smithereens with a hammer. I opted for the former, but I could still hear it – over the noise of the cicadas! – all the way back to the house.
The Squire pulled the lawn mower from the barn when he got home, and it was still blaring, but when he finished mowing, the bloody thing had finally quit.
Probably melted into a puddle. And I don’t care!
thisendoftheswamp 
Why not just pull the battery out? Especially since prolonged beeping for no reason usually means that the battery is dying and needs to be replaced anyway.
Replacing – or simply removing – the battery was our first thought, but we couldn’t get the dang thing apart.
The bread in the toaster reminded me of the sensitivity of the fire alarm back in the days of the townhouse. All that time practicing smoke signals with dish cloths trying to get the blasted thing to turn off. Make sure you get a new one just in case one of you forgets that you were cooking.